The media in Catalonia have recently dealt with several hotspots – the chance to make a comeback against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League, the election of Joan Laporta as president and immediately afterwards one of his first recruits to the club – Jordi Cruyff. The Dutchman, the son of a legend of the past and who himself played for the team in the 90s, has been in Barcelona’s notebooks for years. Even when he was at Maccabi Tel Aviv, his name came up as someone who might return to the team almost three decades from the moment he left.
Jordi, who chose to pursue a professional career after finishing his career as a player, has always been in demand at Barcelona. You could say that Cruyff was the “A” in every election campaign when the “Socios” (members of the management at Barça) used to use it as a winning card, one that you can not have without you. As a result Jordi had many opportunities to join the club in the past but he did not want to – until he returned to the right man system, the one that might make him come back to Catalonia at the age of 47 within a technical director.
Just not Bartomeu
Much has been said and more will be said about the tenure of the management of Bartomeu and his people in Barcelona. Those who on the one hand led to some impressive achievements, were on the other hand the ones who signed the worst period in many years at the club. A period that culminated on the grass with the monstrous 8: 2 to Bayern Munich, but off the field came to a great and unprecedented scandal that ended in a raid on the club offices and Bartomeu’s arrest. People associated with Barça, those who are familiar with the mood, understood that the failing management must make room, with the fans of course already fed up and even the big star Messi speaking out strongly against Bartomeu.
Like them, so does Jordi Cruyff. Everyone who knows the Dutchman has heard from him more than once while he was at Maccabi Tel Aviv that he will not return to Barcelona as long as the management does not vacate the chair. Jordi received many inquiries from Bartomeu but knew how to refuse and always said that for him he does a good and right professional way for him, when he experiences football from all directions and in recent years also as a coach, all so that one day, when he returns to Barcelona, he can be flexible in his professional suit. – If Laporta returns, maybe it’s going to happen – it’s a recurring sentence from Jordi.
So this moment came recently when Laporta won by an overwhelming majority and was given the perhaps most difficult task in world football these days – to heal Barcelona, and at the same time to make sure that Leo Messi does not leave in the summer. In order to achieve these things, Aporta knows that he needs good professionals around him, those who, in addition to their ability to manage and march forward a club of this size – also those who can be trusted that the club’s good precedes their personal good (see entry – Bartomeu and the Barça Gate mentioned). A company that will defame senior players on social media and praise the management).
Meets the requirements: These are Jordi’s challenges at Barça
Jordi became one of the first to play Laporte’s sleeve. The fact that Cruyff was also on Victor Font’s agenda (who faced Laporta for the presidency), when he tried to form a dream team with Carles Puyol, Jordi Cruyff and Xavi as coach on the lines, and in the end Puyol and Jordi are the first to “switch sides”, It is a huge victory for Laporta in the campaign for the presidency of Barcelona. On the professional side, Jordi comes to the position of technical director who has been staffed in recent years by professionals who have not done well with the club, such as Eric Avidel as a prominent example, but also Carls Planas who does the job today and did not shine to say the least. In this respect and due to the closeness and friendship between the two, Jordi can under a president like Laporta bring out better results in office.
So what does the job require in one of the most prestigious and stressful clubs in the sports world? Well, Jordi will be in charge of recruiting for the senior team, and he faces quite a few challenges in trying to strengthen the team that is desperate to strengthen at the front and of course at the back that has been lacking for many years. Of course, Cruyff will also have weight in further decisions regarding the coaching staff, a strategy of contracts with players and an impact on the development process at La Masia, the glorious youth academy, which it seems that Laporta is going to invest quite a bit in. Remember well, a long line of players led by of course Messi, Pique, Xavi and Iniesta, have made the track from there and even now under Ronald Koeman there are new talents popping up.
In terms of management abilities, Jordi has already shown during his 6 years at Maccabi Tel Aviv (of which 5 as a professional manager) that he is able to work under perhaps the biggest pressure cooker in Israeli football and make him the thing he wants to be. The biggest difficulty for the Dutchman in Israel was the fact that journalists actually lived inside the team’s locker room, sat in training and actually saw everything that was happening. What bothered him was the matter of the leaks and the connection between the actors and the journalists. In Jordi’s it is not customary for a journalist to talk to a player after training and ask how he was – the information is only obtained through the official channels. Thus, Cruyff turned Kiryat Shalom into a closed fortress where the entry of communications is strictly forbidden.
The connection between player and journalist Jordi will not have to be severed as a technical move by Barcelona because there is not much, but he will have to build around him a lobby of journalists who will give silence to the senior team, and he has that ability. Of course, Barcelona, in terms of greatness, coverage and pressure, is not similar to what he experienced in Israel, but Jordi will have to adopt things he has done here in the country, with brave steps he has taken, in order to produce a mechanism that leads a large team.
He made decisions that put money into Goldhaar
One of the least known stories about Jordi is his first conflict at Maccabi Tel Aviv with owner Mitch Goldhaar. Cruyff reached the Yellows in a situation where they were trying to sell Musa Konata for whom there was an offer from Italy for 700,000 euros and the Canadian was determined to sell him. At the same time, the Olympics were held and Senegal played there, and Jordi for his part insisted that the Senegalese striker should not be sold until after the competition. Goldhaar, as a businessman, wanted to sell in light of the handsome offer made on his desk after Konata played a total of six games in the seniors. He was not interested in the Olympics, he feared that there would be an injury or that there would be no other offers or that in a month, the conditions he would receive for Konata would be lower.
Jordi insisted and told Goldhaar that if he scored 3-4 goals in the Olympics – his price would skyrocket. The result? Konata was one of the best players in the tournament and Maccabi sold him for 2 million euros to Russian Krasnodar. It was also Jordi’s significant card against Goldhaar later on, when the owner from Canada realized that he was not facing a “sucker”, but a character who understood what she was doing.
Another event is around Barak Yitzhaki. When Jordi arrived at Maccabi Tel Aviv, there was a situation where one of the two had to go out – Yitzhaki or Eliran Atar. This was a decision that was made even before the Dutchman was signed in Kiryat Shalom. On the one hand Goldhaar really liked Barak and the spirits around the change were that Atar had to be sent out, but Jordi thought differently when he arrived. He believed that Yitzhaki should actually be cut off from all the factors around Maccabi and that the best thing for him was to go out for a season outside of Israel, where he could also recover from the injury he experienced.
Yitzhaki did not like the decision that came from the Dutchman, but respected what he said and went out to Cypriot Famagusta Anorthosis. Maccabi claims that in one of the conversations, Jordi allegedly said, “We will send Yitzhaki on loan for one season and return him in the summer. In the coming season, Eliran Atar will explode in terms of goals and we will sell him. ” It may have been a wish, but it came true. Atar scored 22 goals and was sold for 2 million euros to French Reims and it was the second consecutive summer in which Jordi put such a sum into Goldhaar’s coffers. Yitzhaki returned and made a tremendous season under Sousa who was interrupted only by his rupture at the cross in Basel.
The photographers outside Bartomeu’s office
Another story when it comes to Barcelona is around Bartomeu. The previous president of Barça invited Jordy to him one day for a conversation, the Dutchman went out of respect to hear what Bartholomew had to say, when he also had a feeling that the content of the conversation would be leaked out. As he got out of the car, Jordi saw photographers waiting and lurking for him at the entrance to Bartomeu’s offices. Hand in hand or booked there in advance?
Very quickly the interest spread in the media in Spain as in a field of thorns, and at the same time speculation came as to Bartomeu trying to bring Cruyff to Barcelona. Jordi, for his part, told all his associates that he would not return to the club as long as Bartomeu heads it, unless he does – it’s just in case of Laporta’s return. There is a feeling that Jordi also believed that his period outside Barcelona and until he returned to her in some position will be longer than it actually is.
The last point is his children. Jordi, due to his roles and career he chose, has lived very little time in Barcelona in recent years. In other words, he missed the upbringing of his two children (son and daughter). Now, once his return to Barcelona is complete, he will also be whole once again and could be much closer to them. This is something he has talked about quite a bit, which is one of the things that bothers him the most during his professional career on a daily basis. It became much tougher in this corona year. Now he will be able to find a solution to this and again be close to his mother as well. Jordi signed his contracts without an exit clause to Barcelona because he did not believe that Laporta would return, and even now in a contract with the Chinese Shenzhen he coaches the subject is not as simple as one thinks, but will eventually be closed.
The tribute with Messi
A few years ago, one of the agents in Israel flew to Barcelona with his children for a vacation. One day in the city they decided to take a tour of the complexes of Barcelona, to show the boy the glorious academy. For the slim chance, the same agent decided to try and see if he could get his son a picture with Leo Messi. The agent called Jordy while they were in the compound and asked if he knew anyone and what the chances were of getting the picture. Cruyff asked where they were, told them to wait at the entrance to the offices and after a few minutes Messi came out to them, took a picture with the boy, gave him an autograph and even told them to say hello to Jordi.
In the end, Laporta’s arrival at Barça heralds a change and a rosy future that could come back to the team. Jordi, whose father Johan who died in 2016 was of course a huge icon at the club and whose character is experienced in the prestigious complexes, has become one of the first seniors for the role, one that is almost self-evident in the Catalan media that will take place. Even before the election, Jordi was often seen by the local media and said that his father would like Laporta as president, so this is his choice. Now, Jordi has become the president’s choice. “Laporta’s return has accelerated Jordi’s return process, he wants him by his side in order to fill a large gap in such an important role in Barcelona,” it was written in Catalonia.